All the struggles brought me to Italy, and I’m embracing life to the fullest potential, I love it here, I love the culture, I love what it has taught me so far, and it’s bittersweet to think early next year more than likely I’ll be on the other side of the Alps.

I constantly think about purpose, and I think for the most part what people do is insignificant (including myself), but we have to do it anyway otherwise there would be chaos.  I think about all the talented individuals around the world that are marginalized by outdated institutions, visions, and poor leadership, –much thought goes into giving these people who super smart but not in the least bit challenged to have purpose.  Not the type of cog in wheel purpose, but something completely different.

Something in my heart tells me I’m going to come up with something completely different one day.  I’m sure everyone says and feels things like this, and think often, can you have the vision of what it’s like taking the red pill while living the blue pill life.

So far in Italy it’s changed my life, the trolls would describe it as the socialist ‘I’ in the PIIGS acronym of finance, but I see it as a land with amazing gastronomy and contemporary culture, one who’s laid back and family oriented, and a place that’s got some of the most unique and diverse geography I’ve ever seen…..not to mention intelligentsia crawling all over these mountains, probably left over from numerous theocratic revolutions.

Tonight my heart and mind is with Italy, the wonderful people and amazing cities….Florence, what I’d say is the last Renaissance city left on the planet, Verona, the city of 3 concentric walls of three time periods to defend against 3 different enemies, Venice, who on top of all the awe and beauty hosts one of the most haunted places in the world according to folklore, the ‘plague island’ where 160k died in a generation or so.  On top of that Padova, the wonderful ‘college town’, Treviso, Brennero, all these AMAZING places I saw 10 years ago, but am able to explore now and actually understand a bit more about what I’m seeing.

While I’m here, I still have to ‘Cross the Rubicon,’ it was symbolic for Caesar, and it’ll be symbolic for me as well as I feel in my mind crossing ‘Digital Rubicons,’ geographies, mindsets, advanced cultures, personal and mental barriers can be just as tough for individuals, even if you’re not building empire.

Why the significance?, I think – heavens, This place represents hope, excess, the great divide in the haves and have nots, the disparities in genders, and the effects of oil. 

The old adage of PJ O’Roarke, my wealth has no implications on your poverty may ring true — so.  When the developed world buys oil in excess for 50 or so years, you have 5,000 or so sheiks with Range Rovers controlling the wealth, building all sorts of crazy things, all the while the investment seldom reaches the populous.

I hear stories of the places that are ‘friendly’ to men, The Cyclone or The York, which offers escorts by Russians or Ethiopians respectively.  Or, I hear stories of how the global recession has hit the transient working class — both workers and escorts, all coming to Dubai on ‘work visas’ to have their passports taken from them and sold into indebtedness and slavery, while the government turns a blind eye.  It truly is a sad tale of human evolution.

While I’m sitting at the posh hotel, what’s going to be going on in my head is, how does this place get so contemporary and progressive while such inconsistency exists — and then I answer my own question, throw enough money at something and it morphs into whatever you want.

My goal in life is trying to understand how disparities like this form and why they exist.

As explained in the transcription:

OK lets begin with Guitar 1 which is Thom Yorke. This part was played with a pick and it is quite complex looking because of the loose picking pattern. It is best not to try to hit every note exactly, just try to get the vibe of the song. Any part that guitar 1 repeats is played similarly on repeats.

Guitar 2 is Jonny Greenwood, his insane playing style is so distinctive it is impossible for it to be anyone else. For this part you’re going to need a delay pedal, flanger, and a pitch shifter. Johnny plays some crazy harmonics like 2.5 which is halfway between the second and third fret. I suggest you read the attached legend in order to decipher the method I used to arrange his bends and pre-bends.

The sweet smelling soap of the wash, rinse, repeat cycle of life now is the 8:30 to 10:pm guitar sessions on Monday and Thursday nights.

From Wiki, some insight to the song –

“Paranoid Android” is categorised by three distinct moods written in what Yorke referred to as three different states of mind.  The song’s lyrics tie in with a number of themes common in OK Computer, including insanity, violence, slogans, and political objection to capitalism. Yorke’s lyrics were based on an unpleasant experience at a Los Angeles bar during which he was surrounded by strangers high on cocaine. In particular, Yorke was frightened by a woman who became violent after someone spilled a drink on her. Yorke characterised the woman as “inhuman”, and said “There was a look in this woman’s eyes that I’d never seen before anywhere. … Couldn’t sleep that night because of it.” The woman inspired the line “kicking squealing Gucci little piggy” in the song’s second section. Yorke, referring to the line “With your opinions, which are of no consequence at all”, said that “Again, that’s just a joke. It’s actually the other way around — it’s actually my opinion that is of no consequence at all.”

A rainbow above the gig,

later a kinda full mood.

Ronster, mr 5th row, must be nice.

the free tibet theme going on.

So, I can say, knowing yourself is power, having a deep understanding of yourself is amazing. I find something new out about myself all the time, tonight, I’ve come to the conclusion a lot of the things I do are ‘ghetto.’

I’m riding my bike this evening, a considerable investment in bike, gloves, shoes, hat, shorts, etc. I roll out all the time still in a rebellious fashion. When you’re going 30 on a bike you can fall and jack yourself up pretty good, and my attire on the bike ride, WELL, lets just say it ain’t no Lance Armstrong, especially after a brisk 10 mile ride, lovely BO.

Well I ride through the southeast side for greater ‘motivation’, the sides where killings are one a day plus iron. I really like the mobile upload for facebook, really cool stuff, blackberry to facebook flawlessly.

Speaking of which, I must have Google backlash here. I think their ‘open social’ initiative isn’t going to work because the ‘identity piece’ hasn’t been figure out, hence can you say porn bot open social friends? Straying more and more away from core competencies, blogger ain’t changed a bit in forever, I’m looking at moving to typepad…at the end of the day they are a bonafid advertising agency with a great search service, yahoo and msft will catch up and the pie will be split at least 3 ways. How about Mozilla hopping in bed with Google, I feel like it proves the whole ‘open’ ideology isn’t really all that it’s cut out to be. It is inevitable that the boys from Google will be trading in the free lobster dinners for Subway someday, I’m not a hater, just a realist.

Hype keeps a lot of things inflated, hell it keeps some cities inflated, like the one I used to live in. It’s great if you can sustain it, otherwise the impending ‘bust’ will occur. I guess in a flat world Billy Bob technologist can work anywhere he wants to. Hype keeps the dreaded stock market higher than ever while the housing market is in a bust, dollar is at a all time low EVERYWHERE, and oil just hit 96 bucks a barrel.

Big impressions on SA thus far, terrible roads, lots of homeless, lots of multi-cultural people around the Alamo, lots of stupid tourist BS around it too, car getting broken into while its 13 feet from where I’m sleeping is a bit alarming (literally), and it’s tooled for the family life.

There are what to me are surreal situations around me here, and I really do enjoy putting them all into perspective.

What does it all mean, I hate driving, especially on the daily commute. It’s different driving a Porshe thru winding country roads, but the exotic commute always produces near collisions.

Driving is scary, we take it all for granted, especially on highways, where the person in that other lane could just smash right into you. Damn, I’m morbid, and what a lame post, have a great weekend everyone.

Over the years we’ve talked about small town life, tractors (didn’t know too much about them till I met Ken), BBQ, Germans, and a host of other things. A pleasant person to have around the office, offering joy to a dreary place.

While we continue to punch holes in firewalls, trying to accomplish impossible connectivity to a mainframe (dead horse….cough cough), he’ll be out on the farm somewhere out there by Walburg, happy as can be, beer in hand, brisket on the pit.

Cheers Buddy –